rt since that memorable afternoon of the year before when Mignon
had accused Ellen Seymour, now a junior, of purposely tripping her
during a wild rush for the ball. Privately, Miss Archer considered
basket ball rather a rough sport for girls and they knew that a
repetition of last year's disturbance meant death to basket ball in
Sanford High School.

Two of the three practice games had been played by the sophomore teams.
The squad of which Marjorie was captain had easily won the first. This
had greatly incensed Captain Mignon and her players. A series of locker
and corner confabs had followed. Mary, who did not aspire to basket ball
honors, had been present at these talks. In the beginning the
discussions had merely been devoted to the devising of signals and the
various methods of scoring against their opponents. But gradually a new
and sinister note had crept in. Mignon did not actually counsel her team
to take unfair advantages, but she made many artful suggestions, backed
up by a play of her speaking shoulders that conveyed volumes to her
followers. It began to dawn upon Mary that these "clever tricks," as
Mignon was wont to designate them, were not only flagrant dishonesties
but dangerous means to the end, quite likely to result in physical harm.
Her sense of honor was by no means dead, although companionship with
Mignon had served to blunt it. She had remonstrated rather weakly with
the latter on one occasion, as they walked toward home together after
leaving the other girls, and had been ridiculed for her pains.

She now stared at Mignon's irregular, disjointed writing, which in some
curious way suggested the girl's elfish personality, with unhappy eyes.
Just what did Mignon mean by intimating that several persons were "going
to be surprised" when to-morrow's practice game was over? It sounded
like a threat. No doubt it was. Suppose--some one were to be hurt
through this tricky playing of Mignon's team! Suppose that some one were
to be Marjorie! Mary shuddered. She remembered once reading in a
newspaper an account of a basket-ball game in which a girl had been
tripped by an opponent and had fallen. That girl had hurt her spine and
the physicians had decreed that she would never walk again. Mary put her
hands before her eyes as though to shut out the mental vision of
Marjorie, lying white and moaning on the gymnasium floor, the victim of
an unscrupulous adversary. What could she do? She could not warn
Marjorie to